


You Can Stay Here

by Colubrina



Series: Rare Pair Harry Potter One Shots [13]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 13:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22882459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colubrina/pseuds/Colubrina
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Remus Lupin
Series: Rare Pair Harry Potter One Shots [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1459201
Comments: 45
Kudos: 159





	You Can Stay Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShayaLonnie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShayaLonnie/gifts).

Remus was 19 when he fell through what he supposed must be called a force field. He was 19, freshly graduated from Hogwarts with his friends very freshly dead, betrayed by a man they'd - he'd - considered a brother in war he hated. Poor, despised, friendless, and outcast he'd reached the stage of nothing left to lose.

Freedom, he supposed.

Freedom meant when he saw the shimmering wall of pure magic he shrugged and walked through it. Freedom meant nothing mattered. Maybe, he thought as he took the first step, it was a Veil and he'd see James and Lily again. 

The other side didn't, however, offer up beloved friends. It offered up a conventional, light-filled flat with a bushy-haired girl who was engaged in what seemed to be a screaming fight with a ginger boy. "I have had it with you," she screeched. "You are still just a prejudiced, narrow-minded pureblood elitist, no better than Malfoy! Get out, get out, get out!"

"Merlin, Hermione," he said. "He's just a bloody centaur. No need to be -"

The girl raised her wand and pointed it at her foe, who held his hands up in supplication and backed toward the door. "I'm going, I'm going," he said. Remus cringed when the boy added, almost under his breath, "I'll come back when you aren't on the rag."

The girl sent a children's stinging hex at the boy who yelped and slammed the door behind him. "Arsehole," she muttered and was about to throw her wand down when she caught a glimpse of Remus and turned into an immediate defensive crouch. "Who are you?" she demanded.

Remus guessed by the way she moved the war wasn't over. "Remus," he said. Then, taking a risk, he asked, "You a Phoenix or a Snake."

She narrowed her eyes a didn't lower her wand. "Phoenix," she said. "Though I'm a tad confused how you don't know me. Golden girl and all that. If there's one more article about me in that damned _Prophet_ I might outpace Harry."

Remus' heart skipped a beat. It wasn't possible. "Harry?" he asked.

"Have you been under a rock?" his mystery girl - Hermione, apparently - demanded. "Harry Potter."

The room started going white and Remus' feet fell out from under him somehow and he was sitting on the floor with his back to this girl's wall and she was squatting next to him with her hand on his forehead. "What year is it," he asked her.When she told him he started doing math in his head and began to laugh and cry at the same time. James' son, James' orphaned son, was as old as he was. He had survived. He had, it seemed, a friend in this girl. "Did we win?"Remus asked through the hysteria.

She stood up and offered him her hand. "Let me get you a cup of tea," she suggested. "I'll explain. I haven't much to eat in my flat - I'm not one for cooking - but I think I have some chocolate covered biscuits that should help with whatever shock you've just had." She frowned. "What year do you think it is?" she asked as she helped him up and waved at him to follow her to a small kitchenette where she put water on.

He told her and her composure faltered for a moment. "We won," she said, the simple words taking a weight off his shoulders. "That monster is dead, Harry's alive, no thanks to his own urges toward martyrdom, and I'm alive." She took a deep breath. "A lot of people died. Sirius. Dumbledore. Tonks. Fred." Her voice broke on that last one.

"Sirius can rot in Azkaban," Remus said, the wound of that betrayal fresh and aching.

And then she told him. She told him everything. They ate all the biscuits and put the kettle on a second, then a third time. They ordered some kind of Muggle takeaway that made his eyes widen with the realization this witch, like Lily, was Muggle-born  and used to walking between the worlds. When Remus heard that Sirius had been innocent, had escaped prison to try to save Harry, he'd started to shake. Twelve years. Twelve years in hell and his first thought, only thought, had been to protect James' son.He’d wronged the man.Oh, gods, how he’d wronged him.

"The fourth Marauder just disappeared," she said. "People assumed you'd died."

"I wanted to," he admitted. Only hours ago he'd wanted to. She was fascinated by the story of the story of the wall of shimmering light he'd found. He could see her look over at her bookshelf as though she'd find the answer there. What was it? Why had it moved him forward in time? Why had it dumped him in her living room of all places? Finally, she muttered something about going up to the library at Hogwarts and figuring it out and moved on to practicalities. She was, Remus would come to discover, an almost terrifyingly practical girl.

"You can stay here," she said. “That would probably be easiest."

"I can't." He searched for an excuse. "I don't want to be a bother."

She mostly ignored him as she set about washing up the dishes. "It's no bother," she said. "I just finished up an extra year at Hogwarts to do my N.E.W.T.s so I’m used to having people around.It’s been weird living alone, to be honest.I have a spare room and it's not as though you have any place else to go right now. You might as well stay here while you figure things out." She added with a conspiratorial grin, "Plus, I need you to answer all sorts of questions about that wall of light."

"I can't," Remus said desperately.

"Why not?" She raised her brows and studied him, her hands on her hips as she waited for an answer.

"I'm a werewolf," he choked out at last and waited for her to recoil in horror and order him from her home, assuming she didn't kill him outright.

Instead, she glanced at the calendar and said, “So?It’s nearly a new moon.You have plenty of time to start drinking wolfsbane and I can always ward the guest room when you change if that would make you more comfortable.”

“I can’t afford wolfsbane,” he said.

Hermione Granger, who was apparently his new roommate, looked at him in utter perplexity.“I can brew it,” she said in a tone that indicated that was obvious and she thought a little less of him that he’d doubted that.He must have looked dubious - it was a complicated potion after all - so she said, “I made my first batch of Polyjuice at twelve.I support myself doing freelance brewing.I assure you, I can brew Wolfsbane.I could probably do it in my sleep.”She looked excited for a moment.“I wonder if I can make it better.If you’re _here_ I could… I’ve had some ideas about ways to make the person not just remain in control but to make the transition painless.”She looked suddenly embarrassed. “The bathroom’s basically a potions lab.I’m sorry about that, it’s just - “

“I think I can live with that,” Remus said, studying her.She had, he realized, beautiful eyes:dark and clever and prone to sparkling when she had an idea she was considering. 

“Ron hated it,” she muttered.

Ron, Remus assumed, was the ginger boy she’d hexed out of her flat after he expressed contempt for centaurs.Ron, Remus decided, would not be coming back in any meaningful way.

“Why my living room,” Hermione wondered aloud before she said. “Oh, Merlin, you have to meet Harry.I’ll write him right now.He’ll be… meeting you… be prepared to answer a million questions about James.”She hugged him spontaneously before she pulled out a sheet of parchment and began writing a note and Remus inhaled the scent of her hair.Old parchment and freshly cut herbs and something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

He was sure, given enough time, he’d figure it out.

Time, after all, seemed to have decided to be his friend today.


End file.
